Despite new federal limits on who can get a Covid-19 vaccine and the arrival of the cold and flu season, many Vermonters can still get a booster, though details surrounding Medicare reimbursement and federal recommendations remain uncertain.

In a late August post on X, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the Food and Drug Administration approved Covid-19 booster shots, but only for those 65 and above or with existing health risks. 

Vermont state officials are now awaiting a recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which typically guides public health directives and insurers’ coverage, for those who want to get a fall booster shot.  

“Really the best thing that I can recommend is either to go online and see if you can set up an online appointment (for a vaccine), or call pharmacies in your area to see if they’re available,” said Julie Arel, the state’s interim commissioner of health.

In Vermont, pharmacies are moving forward with administering the vaccine. Kinney Drugs and CVS have the updated Covid vaccines in stock. Pharmacies order directly from the manufacturer. Providers — doctors’ offices and other clinics — often get vaccines through the state, which is not yet able to order the vaccines from the CDC. 

Kinney Drugs’ spokesperson Alice Maggiore confirmed that the stores can administer the 2025-26 vaccines to people above 65 and individuals between 12 and 64 who attest to having one of the qualifying conditions, as outlined by the CDC. 

CVS is able to vaccinate anyone over 5 years old, who attests to eligibility under the same CDC’s preexisting conditions list, or anyone older than 65, according to a company executive, Amy Thibault. 

The underlying risks outlined by the CDC range from asthma or a smoking history to mental health disorders, like depression obesity, or physical inactivity. Patients do not need a doctor’s prescription to confirm the underlying condition at Kinney or CVS, both spokespeople said.

Typically, insurers cover vaccines received in a pharmacy. Whether some private and government insurers will be able to cover the vaccines remains uncertain. Even if people can get the vaccine by walking into a pharmacy, it’s unclear if they will have to pay for it:  “It’s a little bit mind boggling,” Arel said. 

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont, the state’s largest private insurer, plans to continue to cover the vaccine for any member, at no cost and with no prior approval, said Andrew Garland, a vice president and spokesperson for the insurer. Blue Cross Blue Shield of VT intends to do so through 2026, as well. MVP, the state’s other private insurer selling plans on the marketplace, also does not anticipate changes in its vaccine coverage policy, said Elizabeth Boody, a spokesperson for the company. 

What employer-sponsored insurers and providers like Tricare, the military health system, might be able to cover, is still unclear.

Since the FDA has already approved the vaccine for those over 65, it is likely that Medicare, which covers the same age group, will cover the vaccines. Dorit Reiss, a vaccine policy expert at the University of California Law, San Francisco, told NBC News that once the FDA approves a vaccine, Medicare has the authority to cover it.

Generally a Covid vaccine undergoes three steps for approval: First the FDA authorizes the new vaccines — which it did in August. Then a panel within the CDC called ACIP (short for Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices) issues a recommendation on the vaccine. It is scheduled to meet Sept. 18-19, to do so. This year many are holding their breath ahead of ACIP’s announcement, since Kennedy gutted the panel and replaced it with many vaccine skeptics. 

The state is weighing whether and how it will need to break from that typical process, and is currently exploring what Vermont statute allows for breaking with that process.

While it is quite common for providers to prescribe a drug outside of what the FDA has authorized them for, it’s not typical, however, for that to happen with vaccines. The FDA’s lack of formal guidance on what qualifies as an underlying condition leaves room for interpretation surrounding who qualifies for the vaccine.

“There’s some flexibility in there, but because it’s not as clear as usual, there is going to be hesitancy, in all likelihood,” said Arel. “And anytime there’s hesitancy, anytime there’s confusion, it’s going to lead to lower immunization rates. We really want to try to avoid that.”

The Department of Health is also looking to Vermont’s neighbors in the Northeast for direction, Arel said. In August, the department joined with other state health departments in the region to build a coalition ready to respond to shifts in federal guidance. Though the group has no unified recommendation, she says it’s something they are considering to help mediate the current disjunctive state of vaccine recommendations and approvals. 

“If as a region, we can become more aligned, it helps people across the whole Northeast region to feel a level of confidence in their state public health department’s decisions and how we’re moving forward,” she said.

In Massachusetts, Gov. Maura Healy required in-state insurance carriers to cover the vaccines recommended by the state’s Department of Public Health, even if they are outside of the federal recommendations. The state’s commissioner of public health also issued a standing order that allows pharmacists to issue Covid shots to anyone over the age of 5. 

In response, Arel said Vermont is watching its neighbors and looking into where state statute might allow for potential action. 

“Getting clarity and having a message be clear and simple, is going to be the most important thing we do,” Arel said. “Unfortunately, we are still working through all of that, but we are committed to finding our way through it and making it as simple and easy as possible.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: As feds tighten Covid vaccine rules, Vermont works to maintain access .

The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman is a VTDigger podcast that features in-depth interviews on local and national issues. Listen below and subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get podcasts.

The Centers for Disease Control, the nation’s top public health agency, is in chaos following the firing of its director by President Donald Trump and the resignations of its top leaders last week. Nine former CDC directors wrote in the New York Times this week that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, who spearhead the purge of the CDC and is a longtime leader of the anti-vaccine movement, is “endangering every American’s health.”

States are increasingly spurning Kennedy and taking health matters into their own hands. Northeastern states, including Vermont, have formed a regional health coalition in response to concerns about federal vaccine guidance. The governors of California, Washington and Oregon declared this week said that the CDC has become “a political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science … that will lead to severe health consequences.” The three western states are banding together to coordinate their own vaccine policy.

Meanwhile, the state of Florida has just announced that it will become the first state to do away with all childhood vaccine mandates, eliciting strong objections from public health experts.

Can Vermont trust the health advice coming out of the federal government? What are the leading threats to public health confronting the state and country?

“It pains me to say, I don’t know that you want to trust the CDC,” said Dr. Becca Bell on The Vermont Conversation. Bell is associate professor of pediatrics at the Larner College of Medicine and a pediatric critical care physician at the University of Vermont Children’s Hospital. She is the immediate past president of the Vermont Medical Society and of the Vermont Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. (Bell noted that she is speaking in her personal capacity, not on behalf of the organizations with which she is affiliated).

Bell said that “the officials that have left the (CDC) have really raised the alarm that … we shouldn’t trust what’s coming out of the CDC in terms of some immunization guidance in particular.”

She encouraged families to look to other sources for accurate information, especially the parenting website of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which represents 67,000 pediatricians. She also recommended the Vermont Department of Health and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

“Then I ask families to talk to their own child’s doctor, because that’s going to be a great source as well.” 

Kennedy, the Health and Human Services secretary, announced in May that the CDC would no longer recommend a COVID shot for healthy children. The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued contrary guidance, recommending a COVID shot for all children under the age of 2 since they are “especially vulnerable to severe COVID-19.”

Bell credited Vermont with being proactive “about how we can keep Vermonters safe,” but added that she feels “really sad” for the future of child health in the United States. “I think that we’re going to see a lot of disparities, not just with access to vaccination but access to health care in general, with the big Medicaid cuts that are coming up as well.”

Bell warned that Medicaid cuts, which will result in some 45,000 Vermonters losing health insurance, will fall hardest on children. One third of Medicaid enrollees in Vermont are children.

“What we’re about to see with that One Big Beautiful Bill Act (is) a huge transfer of resources from low income folks to the highest earners in this country,” said Bell. “Accessible, affordable health care is what kids need to succeed and for families to succeed, and so we are deeply concerned about the future of pediatric health care because our foundation is Medicaid. This is how we care for kids. It’s what supports our clinics.”

“The lack of investment in children is just really concerning and very short sighted.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont Conversation: Dr. Becca Bell on the chaos at the CDC, and the uneven future of vaccine access.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced last week that his department would slash about $500 million in mRNA vaccine contracts, a hit to an industry already reeling from other public funding cuts. 

Those impacts are being felt in Vermont, experts say. 

Kennedy and other vaccine skeptics in President Donald Trump’s administration have espoused distrust of mRNA technology. But experts say the criticism is by and large inaccurate and the vaccines are safe and effective, having saved millions of lives during the Covid-19 pandemic.  

“We are now at a point where the most efficacious of technologies, because it’s new, is causing fear, and that fear has found a political outlet,” said Dev Majumdar, an immunologist at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine who focuses on RNA biology. “There’s no question that mRNA vaccines work.”

When used in vaccines, messenger RNA, known as mRNA, teach cells to create a protein or parts of protein that lead to an immune response, helping protect a person against a disease. Scientists can use the mRNA platform to develop vaccines more quickly, and the method is an alternative to other forms of vaccines, like those that include a weakened form of a pathogen.

The Covid-19 vaccines manufactured by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech used mRNA. Moderna has also developed an mRNA vaccine targeting Respiratory Syncytial Virus, known as RSV. 

Majumdar, who leads a UVM RNA lab, said scientists should continually prioritize how they talk to the public about vaccines and pandemic preparedness. It’s OK for scientists to acknowledge when past work has failed, he argued, and there should be no shame in celebrating successes. 

“The public is a part of the process, and we have to constantly try to do better to bring the public in,” Majumdar said. 

In Vermont, the national debate and federal cuts to vaccine research is having an impact on a significant player in the mRNA manufacturing field.

Vernal Biosciences in Colchester manufactures mRNA — for research and clinical trials — as well as lipid nanoparticles, which help mRNA achieve scientists’ intended uses. With additional investment in recent years, the company has been able to follow stricter federal guidelines with the goal of expanding its client base.

Billions of dollars in cuts to public financing of research from the likes of the National Institutes of Health have hit the mRNA field hard, said Christian Cobaugh, Vernal’s founder and chief scientific officer. Plus, the industry, which boomed during the Covid-19 pandemic, was flooded with new players, and demand has since dropped. 

“We’re all feeling it,” Cobaugh said. “It just takes more money out of the total pool.”

When it comes to the impact of reduced public investment, Cobaugh said it ranges from the “specific” to “wait and see.” Cuts to National Institutes of Health grants led Vernal to stop some work mid-contract, he said, in the short-term costing the company in the six figures with a long-term impact in the seven figures. 

In addition to infectious disease vaccines, mRNA use has shown promise in treating cancer and in gene editing therapies. So far, the latter two applications have not been as targeted by federal funding cuts. 

The most recent Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority mRNA vaccine contract clawbacks mainly impact research and development into infectious diseases, according to Cobaugh. That’s a field central to pandemic preparedness, one that’s long relied on public funding.

“We will be less prepared” for the next pandemic, he said. “I don’t want people to be scared that we’re not going to be ready for this. We’re just not going to be as ready as we could be.”

As for the future of mRNA vaccines in a landscape marred by skeptics, Cobaugh said he believes opposition to the technology is fringe. 

“What we’re dealing with here is a fundamental loss in critical thinking skills,” he said. “If people continue to outsource their decisions to politicians of all stripes, we’re going to continue to struggle with technology and where it should fit into our lives.”

Majumdar fears cuts to vaccine research may harm the industry in ways that won’t become fully clear for a decade or more. 

“It’s hurt morale a lot among the people who spend 60 to 80 hours per week working on these things,” he said. “I really, really worry that we’re looking at the precipice of a lost generation of young people that really wanted to go into this, that wanted to cure cancer and fight disease.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: How federal cuts to mRNA vaccine development will affect Vermont .

The United States is in the midst of a surge in measles cases driven by unvaccinated children. 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported 483 measles cases so far in 2025. If the current pace of spread were to continue, it would make this year the worst for measles in the 21st century. 

About 97% of cases have been in unvaccinated people or people with unknown vaccine status, the CDC reported. Three-quarters of cases have been in people under the age of 20. Seventy people have been hospitalized, and one school-aged child has died in Texas. Another death is under investigation.

Cases have been highest in Texas and New Mexico, according to the CDC. Vermont has been mostly spared thus far, with only one travel-related case reported by the state Department of Health. 

But health officials here are worried about one key statistic: The state’s measles vaccination rate for incoming kindergarteners has been below 95%, the critical “herd immunity” threshold that can prevent individual cases from becoming outbreaks. 

For the 2023-24 school year, the most recent year available, 93% of kindergarteners in public or private schools were up-to-date on their MMR vaccines, which provide protection against measles, mumps and rubella, according to health department data. Adults are also recommended to receive the MMR vaccine if they do not have evidence of vaccination or immunity. 

Even fewer, 91%, were fully immunized with all the required childhood vaccinations, which also include protection against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, chickenpox, polio and hepatitis B. 

“If we have 95% of people vaccinated, it would stop the spread,” said Merideth Plumpton, the department’s immunization program director. “Right now in Vermont, we’re below that.”

The measles vaccination rate for kindergarteners in Vermont is similar to the nationwide one, according to a research paper from the CDC. But the state has the second-lowest measles rate in New England, above only New Hampshire. It’s also lower than neighboring New York state. 

While 93% may sound close to 95%, that gap makes a real difference when it comes to herd immunity, Plumpton said. The 95% threshold is effectively a tipping point where vaccinated people act as a buffer, keeping the 5% of the community from coming into contact with each other.

“It just means that if we have a case, the likelihood that it’s going to spread is pretty high, especially if the child goes to school or child care during their infectious period,” she said.

Among all school-aged children, the rate of vaccination was higher, about 96% for the MMR vaccine. But facility-level data, which VTDigger obtained from the health department, shows that the statewide vaccination average was only part of the picture — in reality, many schools are far below the average.

About 26% of K-12 schools and 23% of child care facilities did not meet the 95% vaccination threshold for measles, the department data showed. In three counties — Lamoille, Orleans and Washington — the percent of facilities that do not meet herd immunity rose above 33%.

Vermont requires children entering child care facilities or K-12 schools to receive five vaccines that protect against nine potential childhood illnesses. Students at residential schools, also known as boarding schools, and incoming residential university students are also required to receive the vaccine against meningitis. 

But children can be exempted from those requirements for three reasons: provisional admittance for children with upcoming vaccination appointments, a medical exemption approved by a health provider or a religious exemption where parents attest to “holding religious beliefs opposed to immunization.”

For the 2023-24 school year, only 0.2% of children were medically exempted, 3% were provisionally admitted and 3% were exempted for religious reasons, according to the health department. 

Plumpton said the lowest vaccination rates tend to be found in the state’s most rural areas. “It could be a combination of lack of access and attitudes towards vaccines,” she said. 

Independent schools, which includes private and religious schools, also tend to have lower vaccination rates than public schools, according to the department data. 

Vaccination hesitancy has been bolstered in recent years by anti-vaccine sentiment connected to the Covid-19 vaccine, Plumpton said. The Trump administration has also placed the longtime anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy in charge of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, one of the most powerful public health roles in the nation. 

Plumpton emphasized that most Vermont families still choose to have their children vaccinated. But it’s natural for parents to have questions about the vaccines they’re giving their children, she said. 

“As a parent, I want to make the best decision that I can for my child, and I can only make that decision based on the information that I have,” she said. “And we’re in an age where there’s information everywhere, so it’s really hard to know what the correct information is or where to go to get good, solid, sound, scientific information.”

She encouraged parents to check out reputable websites like Vaccinate Your Family and VaccineInformation.org, which both have thorough FAQs about the safety and efficacy of each vaccine. 

She also encouraged them to discuss their child’s vaccine schedule with their primary care provider or pediatrician. Vermont provides recommended vaccine doses for children and adults at no cost to health care providers. 

But her message to Vermont parents was clear: Measles is a highly contagious virus that can lead to severe illness and death, and “vaccines are the best defense against the illnesses that you’re getting vaccinated against.”

“They’re not going to prevent 100% of the diseases,” she said. “That’s not the way vaccines work. But they’re really highly effective at preventing hospitalization and really serious illness. And there’s a reason that we have these vaccines.” 

You can use the tool below to browse school and child care vaccination rates, or check out the Department of Health’s vaccination dashboard for a fuller picture by year and county.

Clarification: This story was updated to note an additional death under investigation.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Hundreds of Vermont schools and child care facilities do not meet herd immunity threshold for measles.

This is the first story in a two-part series that looks back on the impact of Covid-19 in Vermont after five years. The second story, “A visual history of Covid-19’s path through Vermont,” can be found here.

Five years ago, Vermont health officials announced the first confirmed case of Covid-19 in the state. 

Since then, 1,200 Vermonters died from Covid, countless residents were infected and hundreds of thousands of Covid jabs were put in the arms of Vermonters. 

Last month, the health department announced that it would stop publishing Covid death and case data after years of daily and weekly tracking. The change is the latest shift in how Vermont now views Covid as an “endemic” disease, more like the flu or other seasonal illnesses than a pandemic that stands as the forefront of public health priorities. 

Vermonters have gotten older, but has the state gotten wiser? Are officials better and more prepared to tackle public health crises as they arise? Or is Vermont primed to repeat a cycle of needless suffering and death?

The legacy of Covid goes well beyond the impact of the virus itself. Covid has left Vermont with tools that could help address longtime public health challenges along with emerging threats — and with vulnerabilities in public trust and health systems. 

Officials at the Vermont Department of Health say that Covid was the most daunting challenge they have ever faced, but it left them with new tools and structures that they have implemented in their day-to-day work. 

They also celebrated the state’s track record with the virus. Vermont has one of the lowest Covid death rates in the nation, behind only Hawaii and Puerto Rico, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But that’s not how Anne Sosin sees it. A lecturer at Dartmouth College and health equity researcher, Sosin reflected on how Covid revealed disparities in Vermont society that continue to today. 

Sosin said Covid has added to the “burden” of illnesses like flu and RSV on hospitals and health care workers in the winter months. It has also added a “large footprint” of disability, she said. While long Covid is the most well-known aftereffect of contracting Covid, experts are just beginning to understand how a Covid infection can cause long-term health impacts on multiple body systems. 

Covid has left Vermont — and the nation — with a lasting legacy of mistrust and misinformation, one that appears to be affecting public health response at a federal level, Sosin said. She said the measles outbreak spreading in the U.S. has been fueled by vaccine skepticism that began long before the Covid pandemic, which then amplified it. 

“We’re gonna see a lot of tragedies over the next few years,” Sosin said. “It’s going to get a lot worse before we, ultimately, recognize we have to rebuild.”

Mark Levine, the outgoing commissioner of the health department, echoed that concern in an emailed statement.

“While when compared to national data Vermont remains a leader in immunization – even with numbers I would not brag about – it worries me that the uptake on preventative measures like vaccination has declined so shortly after the pandemic reminded us why they are so necessary,” he wrote.

Pandemic-era innovations

Covid has left a mark on how the health department is able to respond to other public health challenges, staff said. 

One of those developments has been Covid wastewater surveillance, which allows state and local governments to measure virus levels in a community by taking samples at wastewater treatment plants. 

“Wastewater surveillance was done in academic institutions and for research purposes prior to Covid, but it really became a public health tool during Covid,” said Patsy Kelso, the state epidemiologist. 

The department’s public health lab is now gearing up to use wastewater surveillance to measure mpox, seasonal influenza and Candida auris, a hospital-related illness, she said. 

The scientific community is also investigating how to utilize mRNA vaccines, developed for Covid, on other infectious diseases like the flu as well. Antigen tests that can detect both Covid and the flu are already on the market. 

Helen Reid, then the state director of health surveillance, said the pandemic also revealed the need for the state department of health to work more closely with community groups that represent marginalized Vermonters. Covid had a disproportionate impact on Vermonters of color, older residents and people with disabilities. 

“The very first year of Covid really sort of laid bare what we’ve known for a long time, which is that health disparities have an impact on high-risk populations and underserved populations, and we saw that in Covid time and time again,” said Reid, who now leads the health department’s infectious disease division. 

Vermont responded by targeting vaccine outreach to those individuals, and some of that effort has changed the way that the health department continues to collaborate with marginalized communities. The health department just had its first “tabletop” exercise — an emergency-preparedness simulation — with community groups like Migrant Justice and Bridges to Health, she said. 

Sosin also noted the importance of community organizations in responding to Covid in a different way. Early in the pandemic, local efforts like mutual aid groups formed an integral part of helping to reach vulnerable Vermonters. 

“Early in the response that communities would … have a telephone tree, and they would see who was at risk, and they would shop for groceries (for those people),” she said. “We don’t sometimes think of that as public health, but those are the things that enable people to comply with public health.” 

The pandemic response at a state and federal level included a vast expansion of social programs that directly — and indirectly — affected people’s health. 

“We saw the unprecedented use of housing policy as a tool for pandemic control” with the housing of unsheltered Vermonters in motels and the moratorium on evictions, Sosin said. 

The federal government expanded Medicaid eligibility, extended the Child Income Tax Credit and provided several stimulus payments. Those initiatives had a concrete impact on child poverty in the years they occurred. 

The federal government also lifted restrictions on telehealth, which was beneficial to rural health access, she said. “Unfortunately,” she said, that flexibility is about to end unless the federal government extends it — one of many programs Sosin said was at risk. 

‘Emerging threats’

In the early months of 2025, President Donald Trump issued executive orders withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization and cutting foreign health aid. His administration announced hundreds of millions of dollars of funding cuts to institutions conducting health research, something that has Sosin worried about the country’s ability to prepare for future health challenges. 

“We need to be able to generate evidence in real time in response to emerging threats. And research institutions play a critical role in that,” she said. “The existence of research infrastructure was critical to really understanding Covid-19 and to developing tools to respond to it” — from therapeutics to testing to vaccines. 

Those threats include bird flu or H5N1, which has infected poultry and dairy livestock nationwide and sickened humans, primarily farm workers. The U.S. has also recently seen a surge in measles cases led by an outbreak in western Texas. Experts have linked the rise in measles to a decline in childhood vaccination rates. 

“There’s been some conversation around (bird flu) and its pandemic threat potential. And to some extent, I think that that’s the wrong question,” she said. “The question is not about just the pathogen and what its trajectory will be, but rather, how prepared we are to respond as a state in the absence of the policy response and federal infrastructure? How are we going to do this without the federal resources coming our way?”

She referenced newly confirmed U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has a long track record of anti-vaccine activism. Kennedy has recently recommended unproven health supplements to treat measles while casting doubts on the safety of the measles vaccine amid a growing outbreak. 

“There is a large political economy that’s fueled the rise of RFK and other extreme figures,” she said. 

Sosin said the “abdication” of health response at the federal level has highlighted how important state leadership will be going forward. “The state needs to prepare for the vacuum of federal leadership.”

Levine — who declined to be interviewed by VTDigger on the Covid anniversary, citing travel plans in the days prior to his departure from his role at the health department — shared similar concerns about the federal government to Sosin in an emailed statement. 

“The turbulence we are seeing in public health at the federal level only underscores the point that here in Vermont, we have to be willing to do what it takes to be good neighbors to each other and protect our communities,” Levine said via email. 

His top takeaway: Vermont, get vaccinated. Despite the state’s initial progress on the vaccine, uptake for Covid and flu shots have fallen in recent years.

“My hope is that what we are seeing in our vaccination rates is a temporary setback, and that it will not take another dire public health emergency to find out if we have learned the right lessons,” he wrote. 

Correction: An earlier version of this story was wrong about the current job title of a public health official with the Vermont Department of Health.

Read the story on VTDigger here: New technology, and mistrust, is legacy of Covid-19 for Vermont public health.

Noah Diedrich is a reporter with Community News Service, part of the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.

Artificial dyes found in processed and pre-packaged foods sold in schools are the target of a recent bill in the Vermont Senate. 

The bill, introduced by Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden-Southeast, is modeled after California’s 2024 School Food Safety Act. While California’s bill goes a bit farther by banning food items that exceed set amounts of sugar and fat from being sold in lunchrooms, both pieces of legislation set their sights on dyes added to food—such as Red 40, Blue 1 and Yellow 5. 

S. 26 would bar schools from serving food and beverages with any amount of the dyes.

Recent research suggests the six manmade dyes covered in the bill may have unpalatable upshots, including inattention and hyperactivity in kids.

“This makes a whole lot of sense to eliminate those food dyes that have significant health consequences, and especially for kids,” Lyons said. 

Lindsey Hedges, public information officer for the Vermont Agency of Education, said in an email that many food manufacturers are already taking steps to remove the dyes from their products due to California’s recent bill. 

“We do not think that Vermont school meals programs would have difficulty finding products that met the restrictions if the bill were to pass,” Hedges  said.

The agency conducts routine reviews of about 30 schools per year, examining their lunch menus, ingredient labels and recipes. Hedges said those assessments rarely find food dyes in the meals themselves, which are typically cooked from scratch. 

Rather, items with the dyes are mostly found in vending machines, school stores or through a la carte options, she said. 

To be sold in schools, foods must meet certain nutrition requirements, and food manufacturers often make versions of their products to be sold to schools, formulated with child nutrition in mind, Hedges said. 

“These items are subject to minimum nutritional standards set by the federal Smart Snack requirements,” she said, referring to a common name for a set of Obama-era rules. “With California’s recent ban, we are no longer seeing food dyes in many of these products.”

Some local school nutrition directors are not so sure. Karyl Kent, treasurer and former president for the School Nutrition Association of Vermont, said her organization is in full support of Lyons’ measure. 

“We really encourage that our legislators are bringing this up and voicing concern for our safety in school foods and for the health of our kids,” Kent said. 

Pre-packaged and processed food options contain more artificial food dyes than any ingredient in school lunches, Kent said. Think Gatorade, Doritos or M&M’s.

Kent believes Vermont is at the forefront of an effort that encourages school districts to collaborate with local agriculture markets. As a plus, that dynamic helps cafeterias to divorce themselves from food and drink that contain dyes that can harm children. 

“We’re kind of on the leading edge of the local foods movement,” she said. “So naturally, we’re looking to move away from those types of products.”

Two state programs help promote that emphasis on local foods: the 2023 universal school meals act and the Local Foods Incentive Grant, created by a 2021 law. One benefit of the grant, Kent said, is that schools can rely less on vending machines, which are installed to bring in more revenue for the school. 

Since schools can make that revenue through reimbursements for sourcing meal ingredients locally, they can shed their a la carte options as a result, Kent said.

“With the increase in participation in universal school meals and because of our scratch cooking, we’ve increased our revenue from our reimbursements,” she said. “So we rely less on these outside sales.”

Kent, who is also the nutrition director for Mount Mansfield Unified Union School District, said her district sources from farms in New Haven and Huntington to make nutritiously diverse meals like jerk chicken or to provide ingredients for panini bars. 

“The more we can move towards scratch cooking, the better we are,” she said. 

Kent previously worked in the Lamoille North Supervisory Union, which she said eliminated a la carte sales completely. 

“It wasn’t equitable, and it was more labor for us,” she said. After the change, “we did not rely on that revenue anymore,” she said. 

Lamoille North isn’t a unique case — Essex Westford School District also quashed a la carte sales and Kent is currently working toward the same in Mount Mansfield Unified, she said. 

“We’re working on cleaning up our food system, making it more local and healthier for kids,” Kent said. 

The proposal in the Legislature arrived after the Food and Drug Administration enacted a ban on Red 3 in food on Jan. 15. The dye is used in candy, cakes and other sweet treats to give the products a bright, cherry-red hue — and had been banned for use in cosmetics for decades because research linked it to cancer in rats. 

The federal ban came as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a critic of dyes in foods, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as health secretary, overseeing the department that houses the FDA. 

Lyons, the bill sponsor, said she worries about Kennedy’s recent confirmation as the nation’s new top health official because he is a noted vaccine skeptic who lacks any medical background. 

“It’s time for all of us to be very, very aware of what we can do to prevent chronic illness and do that as far upstream as we can get,” she said. “We’ve got to keep an eye on our own kids in our own state.”

Despite his mistrust of some accepted medical practices, Kennedy has signaled his support for further research into food additives and aligning the federal ingredient standards with those of the European Union.

In Vermont, though, S.26 has so far taken a backseat this biennium, Lyons said. 

“Obviously, everyone is preoccupied with property taxes,” she said. “A bill like this takes second row.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Food dyes linked to unappetizing effects could be banned from school meals.

U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Peter Welch, D-Vt., opposed Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday morning. 

“I, after this hearing, did not have confidence that Mr. Kennedy would be the one to lead us to a better future,” Welch said during the committee hearing.

Despite their opposition, Kennedy cleared the Senate Finance Committee and now faces a full Senate vote on his confirmation. Republicans all voted in favor of his nomination, while Democrats voted together to oppose it, 14-13.

Sanders, in a written statement, said there are several issues on which he agrees with Kennedy, such as tackling the ultra-processed food industry, the high price of prescription drugs and the massive spending by large pharmaceutical companies on advertising. 

However, Sanders said he cannot in good conscience vote for Kennedy to lead the federal agency out of concern he would dilute public health protections in the role.

“We should listen to nearly 20,000 doctors who have told us that Mr. Kennedy has ‘a well-documented history of spreading dangerous disinformation on vaccines and public health interventions, leaving vulnerable communities unprotected and placing millions of lives at risk. His appointment is a direct threat to the safety of our patients and the public at large,’” Sanders wrote.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a physician who had been uncertain about Kennedy’s nomination due to his stance on the debunked theory linking vaccines to autism, ultimately cast the deciding vote.

Kennedy now must secure backing from all but three Republicans to take charge of the $1.7 trillion Department of Health and Human Services, assuming unanimous Democratic opposition.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont senators vote against RFK Jr.’s nomination for health secretary.

Picture the scene: It’s a late afternoon in the House, pushing early evening, and debate over a bill is nearing its end. Now, it’s time to vote, but a few members pipe up to request a roll call. The agony! Cue the long parade around the chamber of 150 yeas or nays, one at a time.

In fact, the House spends the equivalent of two days every session conducting roll call votes, a 2018 University of Vermont report on the practice found. But these votes, despite the time they take, also bring accountability: unlike the far more common voice votes, during which members say their “yeas” or “nays” in unison, roll calls put each individual’s decision into the record.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, though, thanks to the wonders of technology, it needn’t be this way.

Nearly every other state Legislature has an electronic system to count votes in their respective House chambers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, and many of those chambers have far fewer members, and thus votes to tally, than Vermont’s does.

Broadly speaking, the systems allow members to key in a vote from their desk, which then appears on a display, possibly next to each member’s name, at the front of the chamber.

Two Vermont House members — Rep. Jim Harrison, R-Chittenden, and Rep. Mike Mrowicki, D-Putney — want the state to join the trend. They’ve introduced a bill, H.49, that would have an electronic roll call voting system in place in the House ahead of the 2026 legislative session. 

“I think it would help us be more efficient in our work. It would help us be more transparent in our work,” Harrison said, discussing the bill with the House Rules Committee Thursday morning.

“Some would say, ‘Well, we’ve done this this way for 200 years. It’s tradition,’” he added, referring to roll call votes conducted by voice, in alphabetical order. But Harrison’s response to that, he noted, would be, “It’s time to change. Let go. Move on. You know, join the technology.” 

Harrison said early estimates peg the cost of installing the system at between $475,000 and $700,000. A similar system in New Hampshire, according to the UVM report, cost about $500,000 to install.

One consideration, Harrison said, is whether an electronic system would encourage members to request roll call votes more frequently. The bill itself wouldn’t change current practice, which requires roll calls only on veto override votes or when at least five members ask for one.

The legislation also focuses solely on the House. But Rep. Karen Dolan, D-Essex Junction, asked during Thursday’s committee hearing: might the Senate want in on the fun, too? 

Senate Secretary John Bloomer, ever one for tradition, didn’t seem too keen on the idea in an interview Thursday. There is less time-saving potential in the 30-member Senate, he said, noting he’s able to tally a roll call vote in as little as a minute.

We’ve never timed him — but we’ll take his word for it.

— Shaun Robinson

In the know

The administration’s proposals for changing Vermont’s landmark climate law, the 2020 Global Warming Solutions Act, became more clear at the governor’s weekly press conference Thursday. 

One change discussed by Gov. Phil Scott and Julie Moore, the secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, would strike the law’s provision establishing a right to sue the state if it’s not on track to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions by its deadlines in 2025, 2030 and 2050. Already one lawsuit has been filed. 

“Ironically, in advancing specious arguments that we are not doing enough to address climate change, advocates are drawing taxpayer resources and staff time away from implementation and into the courtroom,” Moore told gathered reporters. 

Another change would strip power from the Vermont Climate Council, which is charged with determining how the state should reduce emissions. Scott’s proposal would reduce the council’s scope of work and make the body advisory. 

Lastly, the governor is planning to “prepare a companion implementation strategy to the climate action plan” currently being updated by the council, one that is “workable” and “drives implementation” of climate strategies, Moore said, by December 2026.

With few options to make big reductions in emissions ahead of the 2030 deadline, Democratic lawmakers have said they’re open to changing the climate law. Whether they’ll bite on Scott’s proposal is another question. 

— Emma Cotton

Kids’ table

Members of the Senate Committee on Government Operations heard from a key constituency Thursday: the youth lobby.

The Vermont Youth Council, which is made up of 26 young Vermonters between the ages of 11 and 18, is tasked with tackling key issues — including mental health, education and equity and anti-racism — and making recommendations on policy to the Legislature and the governor. 

Currently, the council is scheduled to sunset in February 2026. But Thursday afternoon, four council members urged lawmakers to allow them to push that date back.

“As children, when so much of our life is up to our parents and teachers, we have very little control,” Astrid Longstreth, a first-year student at Mt. Mansfield Union High School, told committee members. “And we often get the impression that we can’t change anything until we ourselves become adults. However, this is not true — and this is why the state youth council is so important.”

Delaying the sunset did not seem to be a controversial ask.

“Can we get that done, like, ASAP?” Sen. Larry Hart, R-Orange, said. “Because this group’s amazing.”

“I’m fairly certain there won’t be a negative vote in the room,” committee chair Sen. Brian Collamore, R-Rutland, said. 

— Peter D’Auria

On the hill

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, made headlines this week for props he brought to confront Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., during a confirmation hearing.

He showed two large photos of baby onesies sold by Children’s Health Defense, the nonprofit Kennedy co-founded in 2016, that say, “No Vax, No Problem” and “Unvaxxed, Unafraid.” The nonprofit has been criticized for spreading misinformation about vaccines.

“Are you supportive of these onesies?” Sanders asked. 

Both Sanders and Welch posed tough questions in hearings this week to RFK Jr., President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Read the full story here. 

— Klara Bauters

Read the story on VTDigger here: Final Reading: Some House members want roll call votes tallied electronically.

Vermont’s U.S. senators posed tough questions in confirmation hearings this week for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, a sprawling bureaucracy that oversees the federal Medicare and Medicaid insurance programs, among other duties.

After enduring more than three hours of questioning from lawmakers in the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday, Kennedy tried to win over senators in a second round of questioning Thursday morning before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. 

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, who serves on both panels, drew significant national media attention on Wednesday for the props he brought to confront Kennedy during the Finance Committee hearing. He showed two large photos of baby onesies sold by Children’s Health Defense, the nonprofit Kennedy co-founded in 2016, that say, “No Vax, No Problem” and “Unvaxxed, Unafraid.” The nonprofit has been criticized for spreading misinformation about vaccines.

“Are you supportive of these onesies?” Sanders asked. 

Kennedy replied, “I’m supportive of vaccines.” He resigned from the Children’s Health Defense in December, when President Trump nominated him for the cabinet position.

Sanders showed the baby clothes to address what he characterized as Kennedy’s inconsistent positions on critical health issues — not only regarding vaccines, but also on abortion, which has repeatedly changed over the last year.

On Wednesday, Kennedy spoke at length about health issues, including his views on the causes of chronic illnesses, Covid-19 and the proliferation of ultra-processed foods. In his opening statement, he told senators that he had been mistakenly labeled as anti-vaccine in the media, and said, “I am pro-safety.”

Kennedy built his career as an environmental lawyer taking on pharmaceutical companies and environmental safety causes. After he ran for president as a Democrat-turned-independent last year, Kennedy embraced the MAGA movement and quickly endorsed Trump in August.

In his remarks, U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., referred to a letter written by Kennedy’s cousin, Caroline Kennedy, who previously served as U.S. ambassador to Australia and Japan and is the daughter of former President John F. Kennedy. The letter painted a harsh portrait of her cousin, saying, “It’s no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets because he himself is a predator.”

“Your cousin in her letter said you’ve always been charismatic, able to attract others through strength or personality, willingness to take risk and break rules. That’s, I guess, an attribute, but it can be a danger,” Welch said. “The question I fundamentally have is whether your willingness to disrupt and maybe break rules is going to be dangerous.”

Welch also mentioned Kennedy’s history with drug use and his concerns about whether Kennedy is stable enough to be in charge of a major organization like the Department of Health and Human Services.

“And that’s compounded by my concern that you don’t have any experience managing a large organization, you don’t have any experience in government,” Welch said.

Many of the Republicans on the health committee praised Kennedy and questioned the science and the effects of vaccines. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said, “All this blather about the science says this, and the science is that. No, it doesn’t. The science actually shows that no healthy child in America died from Covid.”

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., also defended Kennedy and suggested that vaccines may, indeed, cause autism — a claim disputed by public health experts. On Thursday, Sanders confronted Kennedy about his past claim that vaccines may cause autism, saying that dozens of studies worldwide have found no link between vaccines and autism. He asked if Kennedy agreed with these findings. In response, Kennedy said he would review the studies if Sanders provided them. 

Sanders, visibly concerned, replied, “That is a very troubling response because the studies are there. Your job was to have looked at those studies as an applicant for this job.”

The committees are expected to vote in coming days on whether to recommend his nomination to the full Senate for a confirmation vote. Kennedy can only afford to lose three Republican votes if Democrats and independents who caucus with the party are united in opposition.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont senators grill RFK Jr. at confirmation hearings.